Government urged to support 6,000 unregistered TDPs

Alliance of North Waziristan political parties mulls holding a sit-in in Islamabad

MIRANSHAH: More than 6,000 temporarily displaced people from the erstwhile North Waziristan tribal agency are not registered with the disaster management authority of the tribal belt and have missed out on the compensations for damage to their houses or livelihood expenses owing to the military operations to oust terrorists.

This was claimed by the North Waziristan Political Alliance (NWPA) Chairman Malik Ghulam Khan Wazir while speaking to media representatives on Sunday.

The unregistered temporarily displaced people (TDPs) are still deprived of compensation and demand that the federal and provincial governments act urgently to register these TDPs and extend them the financial help they are owed along with the TDP families who are registered.

Another leader of the alliance stated that thousands of displaced families from North Waziristan are currently stranded in neighbouring Afghanistan along with their vehicles and belongings. These people, he said, are waiting for the government to give the green signal to cross the border and return to their homes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in North Waziristan.

He lamented that these TDPs in Afghanistan have yet to get any help from the government and urged the government to take steps for the honourable repatriation of these displaced citizens from Afghanistan. The NWPA chief Wazir demanded that the excise department return the vehicles of TDPs which they had confiscated. Moreover, they demanded that those who had lost their valuables during the military operations should be compensated for their losses.

He also demanded that all unregistered TDPs gather at Qazi Fazal Qadir Park on Monday (today) to devise a strategy for a decisive sit-in in Islamabad in favour of their demands.

It is pertinent to mention that North Waziristan used to serve as the headquarters for the Tehreek-e- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who were ousted by a massive military operation, codenamed Zarb-e-Azb, in June 2014.

The operation caused a mass exodus from the tribal region and people sought shelter in different parts of the country. Most of the TDPs from North Waziristan went to Peshawar, Bannu and even across the border into neighbouring Afghanistan.

Although the process of repatriation of displaced persons in the neighbouring South Waziristan has been completed, the process is yet to be completed in North Waziristan.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2019.